Xianxialing Road starts from Jiangshan in Zhejiang in the north, more than 100 kilometers to Pucheng in Fujian in the south, twists and turns are narrow, the mountains on both sides are high and the valleys are deep, and the peaks are connected, among which there are kiln ridges, Xianxia ridges, tea ridges, small pole ridges, Fengling (big pole ridges), pear ridges (Wuxian Ridges) and other dangerous passes, collectively called Xianxia six ridges. Among the six mountains, Xianxia Ridge is the most precipitous. Xianxia Pass is its important pass. Xianxia Pass has a total of four gates, two passes in the northeast and southwest, all are made of stones, 3.4 meters high, 2.7 meters wide, all built in the pass of the dangerous rock cliff between the two mountains. Guanling is 591 meters above sea level. The total length is 5 km. There are gravel steps.

The American Infantry Brigade still encountered some problems in its advance, some roads were too narrow for heavy artillery to pass through, and the engineer battalion hurriedly hired civilians to open the road.

The American Infantry Brigade did not commit any offense with the people all the way, and at the same time gave silver, and the people of northern Fujian around them could not help but come to participate in the construction of the road, and with the participation of the people, the advance speed of the American Infantry Brigade increased greatly.

It's only five days, and I arrived in Pucheng.

The following is the difficult journey to break the pass, Zheng Zhilong set up a pass all the way from Jiangshan to Pucheng, and the American Infantry Brigade bombarded all the way.

In the middle of the tenth, the American infantry brigade was like a bamboo, breaking through the four ridges in a row, and approaching Xianxia Pass.

The officers and soldiers on Xianxia Pass saw the attack of the American Infantry Brigade, relying on the danger of Xiongguan, and did not pay attention to the persuasion to surrender, and they were sent to defend such a heavy place as Xianxia Pass, all of which were loyal to Zheng Zhilong's descendants.

Xianxia Pass was divided into two passes, and the American Infantry Brigade attacked from behind and began to attack the southwest pass.

The 1st and 2nd Infantry Regiments of the American Infantry Brigade, which went north this time, also followed half an artillery regiment with 150 heavy howitzers and 50 heavy cannons.

After the surrender of the American Infantry Brigade was refused, the heavy howitzers that had been deployed immediately began to bombard the southwest checkpoint of Xianxia Pass.

This kind of level is indeed a Xiongguan for the era of cold weapons, and it is still a Xiongguan in the era of hot weapons.

However, the defenders in Xianxia Pass were not equipped with mature firearms, and the American infantry brigade with heavy artillery on the opposite side was almost razed to the ground by artillery in just half a day.

Under the cover of the musketeers, the pikemen rushed into the pass and fought fiercely for half an hour to conquer the southwest pass.

After the capture, the American Infantry Brigade continued to advance, but encountered problems in the advance, the ancient road in front was too narrow, and the stones of the vicissitudes of the ancient road had been walked extremely smooth, but this width could not be passed at all.

In desperation, Xue Qing had no choice but to let people expand the ancient road first, and then bombard the first checkpoint with howitzers.

The first road of Xianxia Pass, it is really a husband when the pass is not opened, known as "the key to the lock of the two Zhejiang, the throat of Fujian", has always been a place for soldiers to fight.

Shells continued to fall on the northeast checkpoint of Xianxia Pass, and the second division in Jiangshan heard the rumbling of artillery and immediately launched an offensive against Xianxia Pass.

Not to mention, it formed a two-sided attack!

After two days of rapid attack, the defenders of the pass were desperate, opened and closed the door and surrendered, at this time most of the defenders in the pass had died under the bombardment, and the checkpoint was also bombarded with holes.

There is a suspicion of destroying the monument, and if you want to restore it, you will have to spend some effort to repair it.

As soon as the Xianxia Pass was broken, the first division lined up in a long line, 60,000 soldiers and horses marched all the way into Fujian, and the sappers blew up the mountains in front to open the road.

It took only three days for the ancient road to open up enough for heavy artillery to pass through.

The first division went south along the road, and the ships of the entire Min River had already concentrated in Jianning Fu, and when they arrived at Jianning Fu, they took a boat south to Fuzhou.

Only three infantry brigades went south, while the other two infantry brigades began to take over the towns and cities of Fujian and clear the scattered officers and troops in Fujian.

Zheng Zhilong was the chief soldier of Fujian, and the officers and men of the entire Fujian Province obeyed his orders.

In the case of the pressure of the army, these soldiers and horses may not necessarily obey Zheng Zhilong's orders, but they are still incorporated first.

The three infantry brigades went down the river, and after arriving in Fujian, they fought all the way from the coastal plains in the west to southern Fujian, and went straight to Zheng Zhilong's old nest 'Shijing'.

…… In Fuzhou, Zheng Zhilong's sea power came mightily, with more than a thousand warships, and the mighty momentum was simply dumbfounded.

At that time, the Spanish Armada was only a hundred warships.

If the Spanish Armada, which likes close combat like the Dutch, meets Zheng Zhilong, it is really not certain who will win and who will lose.

However, when the Spanish Armada faced the weak British Navy, it could not gain at all, and its failure lay in the idea of naval warfare.

Today, Zheng Zhilong uses the same combat methods as the Spaniards, only more flexible, while the Shandong Navy follows the same route as the British Navy, pursuing ship speed and artillery range, rather than close combat, but the weapons are much more powerful than the British.

The two sides met at the mouth of the Min River, and a tragic naval battle ensued.

The First Fleet was scattered, each warship and frigate carried 1,000 rockets on board, and in order to deal with Zheng Zhilong's terrifying fleet, all the rockets from Shandong's inventory were transported to Taiwan's armed First Fleet and the American Infantry Brigade.

In the guerrilla fight, the First Fleet was always on the periphery of the Fujian Naval Division, and the artillery bombardment continued, and the warships of the Fujian Naval Division were constantly sunk.

But the problem is that the Zheng group learned the lesson of the last time and began to take the initiative to send some cannon fodder to block the First Fleet on the periphery.

The First Fleet simply could not launch rockets at the dense warships, because the distance was too far, and if it broke into it, it would easily be entangled by the Fujian sailors.

Once entangled, there is basically no chance of survival.

The Fujian Navy Division liked to use hook locks to hook enemy ships, and then swarmed up, and the First Fleet, which did not dare to take risks, gave the Fujian Navy Division the opportunity to rush into the mouth of the Min River.

And the First Fleet could only watch as the Fujian Navy Division entered the mouth of the Min River.

Hundreds of warships carrying soldiers, after rushing into the mouth of the Min River, sailed straight towards Mawei, where landing was the most convenient, 100,000 sailors, plus 30,000 land soldiers and horses, the Zheng group thought that there was no problem in 'recovering Fuzhou'.

However, the Fujian sailor was hit by the destruction of the surname in Mawei.

The American Infantry Brigade, equipped with a large number of rockets, launched a large number of rockets at Mawei Harbor, and the warships of the Fujian Navy Division, which wanted to be dense, launched a large number of rockets, and as the dense rockets dragged the orange tail flames into the sky, the fiasco of the Fujian Navy Division was already doomed.

A large number of warships crowded into the mouth of the Min River, and were hit by the rockets fired by the American Infantry Brigade, and they were set on fire one after another, and the soldiers on the ships jumped into the river like dumplings, and the scene was extremely spectacular.

At the same time, the artillery of the American Infantry Brigade was also set up on the riverbank, and the huge shells were fired one after another, sinking the warships entering the mouth of the Min River.

The hull of the ship, the corpses, the wood chips and all kinds of debris floated in large quantities on the surface of the river.

It was an unfortunate war.

Because this is a civil war.

The American Infantry Brigade began to stop shelling, and only used rockets to attack the Fujian naval division on the river, and the people on the boat were at least able to jump into the river to escape for their lives.

At the same time, they also fished people on the shore. Most of the officers and men of the Fujian Navy Division had good surnames, and some of them swam to the shore, while others were swept away by the river and flowed to the sea.

But soon, the American Infantry Brigade resumed shelling.

There is an increasing number of warships pouring in from outside, and it is no longer the time to solve the problem with rockets alone.

There were so many warships sailing into the Minjiang River that the soldiers of the American Infantry Brigade on the shore had to retreat, and these warships also had long-range attack capabilities.

But the shells and rockets continued, and the artillery was mostly arranged on high ground kilometers away, and the range of rockets was also kilometers away.

For the Fujian Naval Division, this was a tragic landing battle.

When they rushed past the barrage of artillery fire and rockets and landed on the shore, the musketeers waiting 500 meters away launched an attack on the officers and men who had landed.

Soon the officers and men who landed were thrown into the water like ducks.

The original Fujian officers and soldiers were not good at land warfare, and Zheng Zhilong's soldiers and horses were only slightly superior, but they were inferior to the Fujian officers and soldiers in terms of substance.

Cold weapon war, according to Qi Jiguang's military book, is still a question of how many people in the army dare to fight, two percent of the people dare to fight to the death, that is a qualified army, if most of them dare to fight, it is invincible.

The reason why the Fujian officers and soldiers lost to Zheng Zhilong was because of corruption, but Zheng Zhilong's men and horses were all pirates from the beginning, and they didn't understand what battles they had, and their background was completely inferior to that of the officers and soldiers.

Attacked by the musketeers of the Shandong army from so far, they did not have the courage to rush up at all, after all, the distance was too far, and they had already been killed by others, so it was better to jump into the water and swim to the south bank.

For those soldiers, it doesn't matter who wins or loses, it's more important to have a small life.

Except for a few that were able to land on the shore, most of them were burned on the river or sunk by artillery shells.

The Battle of Mawei lasted nearly three hours, and from noon to dusk, the American Infantry Brigade had run out of rockets and eighty percent of its shells.

No less than 300 warships of the Zheng group were burned or destroyed.

The naval battle in the coastal waters was also in full swing, and the First Fleet fought fiercely for two hours under constant attacks, sinking more than 200 warships. The landing force that entered the Minjiang River was left alone.

The First Fleet pursued and sank more than 100 ships.

Zheng Zhilong's Fujian naval division lost more than 600 warships in this battle, losing 40% of the tonnage, most of these lost warships were small in tonnage, and their main force was not a loss.

But the main force and those small-tonnage warships are not much different from the First Fleet, but they only sink after a few more shots.

After the pursuit until it was dark, the First Fleet stopped the pursuit and returned to the mouth of the Minjiang River.

After the Fujian Navy Division retreated, the American Infantry Brigade began sea rescue work, driving some unsunken warships to rescue the sailors who fell into the sea.

The rescue lasted three days.

The number of people rescued was shocking, more than 30,000 people were rescued, and only more than 10,000 bodies were recovered.

Most of these sailors have good water surnames, and the rescue is timely, so they didn't die much.

(To be continued)